At present, damage in the region of the outer skin of aircraft is repaired by removing the damaged outer skin region and riveting on a repair patch. The repair patch is riveted to the outer skin region adjacent to the damaged outer skin region in such a manner that an opening in the aircraft outer skin resulting from removing the damaged outer skin region is covered. A riveting method of this kind is described, for example, in DE 10 2006 057 255 B4. Recently, efforts have been made to use adhesive bonding methods in aircraft construction when repairing damage to the aircraft outer skin, i.e. after removing the damaged outer skin region a repair patch is to be adhesively bonded onto a region of the aircraft outer skin adjacent to the damaged outer skin region in such a manner that an opening resulting from removing the damaged outer skin region is covered.